good morning, and welcome to mosaic on a blessed sunday morning to you. i'm pastor elizabeth from saint marshal luther ran church in san francisco and i'm a host of the mosaic host along with a colleague of mine reverend ron. today i have another colleague of mine here on the show with us and i'm eager to have you get to know better. this is is the right reverend mark andrus. you're the bishop of the a piss cal diocese of california and you were installed in 2006 is that correct. >> that's true, 10 years ago. >> wonderful, it's a position of

over sight that you have with the a miss camacho pole community, but you're not here from. i find that interesting. you're from a long place from here and i'm interested in how you got from the deep south to the bay area. please introduce yourself and welcome. >> thank you so much. it's a great pleasure to be with you. well, when i speak with groups in the bay area, sometimes i ask how many are -- were born here like you, and or even right here in san francisco. and there's usually two or three people in the room, but then i go onto make the point that everybody including the ones like you who were born here have chosen to stay here. or to come here. this is a place that people very deliberately choose, and for big, big reasons, perhaps to do with aspirations of freedom and ability to innovate and to bring

all their powers of creativity to bear so i think that's important as we think about who we are and why we're doing what we're doing here in the bay area. sheila -- my wife and i came from alabama. i was the bishop which is if you're looking in civil terms, it's a lieutenant governor. the diocese of alabama which is most of the state of alabama, and i was elected -- we elect all of our bishops and it's a mixed democracy of the a piss bowl church. >> hi scope to follow what god was calling me to do there and i worked in the areas of

environment and reconciliation. those experiences were very transformative for me. i learned how much in both spears. i think those helped prepared me for coming here. >> prior to that, you grew up in an rural part of the south, is that right >> we lived birmingham, alabama. i was born apart of the manhattan project and we lived in an old town, old east tennessee town that was -- became a bedroom community of oak ridge. >> you're -- >> i was raised in the methodist church. united methodist. my mother comes from a long , long methodist family in north carolina. she was raised on a farm in east carolina. interestingly, i remember them talking about [indiscernible]

memorial in san francisco when i was a kid. these farm folks in eastern carolina were very connected to the sense of what glide represented in terms of justice. >> i'm interested in where you got the progressive values and it sounds like it started in the methodist church with your family. >> it started with my mom and my dad, but especially my mother's commitment to justice and from the methodist church. and very strongly. >> you saw that in your home and you saw that in the way they lived their lives? >> yes, very much. they were -- i mean they fit in with a small southern, tennessee town. they were not people who were not very part of things, but i remember there was a meeting they hosted in their home when people were asking a question of could we have black members in our all white church, and my dad

very strongly believed that we could, should, absolutely and he invited church members and the pastor and they had this big meeting and i was a little child listening in, and of course when we listen in, sometimes we take that in more deeply than the things said straight onto us. >> right. we're going to take a break right now, and we're going to hear about bishop andris as our guest today, thank you.

i'm elizabeth here with bick object andrew andurs. welcome bishop andrus, we heard about your southern roots and how your

parents shaped your progressive values, but the south is a long way from the bay area. i'm curious why god chose you to be the bishop here in this die sighs, and why did you choose to come here? >> the sense of call, that's what you're referring to is very powerful idea that we don't make choices that there's more logan into the university than our hopes and desires and accidents. when i was nominated -- so i was nominated to be bishop of california. it's a democratic progress. there were 7 candidates, and before the candidate list was announced, my wife and i - sheila and i took 3 days off of work and we used our minds and we prayed and used our spirits to sort through several options, not just

california, and because i was nominated for several things at once, i thought it was unfair to just passably let the processes unfold. in other words, somebody might be better suited for a particular position than i, but if i stayed in this and then once i was slotted in for one, somebody else might have been eliminated from another, so at the end of that 3 days we felt very strongly called to california and i called the other places i had been nominated and withdrew from all those, but i still wasn't on the final list, so it could have been -- it was like walking off a [indiscernible]. we didn't know if we would be chosen. we didn't know how the election would go. it's a public process. the election of a bishop -- we have what's called walk abouts so five different

churches here in the bay area hosted each one, a walk-about and over 1,000 people in that week came and asked questions and they had the election 2 weeks later. >> uh-huh. what was the toughest question that someone asked you in those walk-abouts, do you recall? >> that's a great question. the american south and the bay area are, in many people's minds, polar opposites. it's the bible bement and one of the kwefs i was asked is you're coming from the bible belt, what are you bringing to the bay area. >> good question. >> i said how about the bible. but not as a, you know, a weapon, and not as something literately true, but something living and beautiful and not that it wasn't here. it was a funny answer, but it's serious

in the way that i take our scriptures to be a source of life in the way -- here we are in this matrix of religions living together in the bay area, and a rich gift to all of us, and our brother and sister religions outside of christianity takes their scriptures very, very seriously. i find that main line denominations in the bay area are little weary about the bible, and there's good reason. they have been tarred in the public understanding of with the brush of intolerance, and people who do use the bible as a -- use it as a weapon against people, so they don't want to be associated with that. >> right. >> we have backed away with god speaking with us through the

skip tours. >> is it different to be a bishop here in the bay area than in another part of the country and what gifts have you brought here as bishop. >> i find the episcopal church everywhere i go. the 82 congregations in the bay area, but also die sighs and -- diocese. we have chinese congregations ad black congregations and rich and poor congregations and mainly gay congregations. but there's a quality to the episcopal church which is the same ever where. >> what is it? >> i'm not claiming it as

exclusive. the luthers -- in the lutherans. we're close. tolerance is a higher to lower -- i tolerate you from a place of height or privilege. i think it's more curiosity and appreciation and a sense of the dignity of everyone that god has made and i find this everywhere in the episcopal church. i find it in alabama. i find it here. so i think obviously there are spectrum differences and you can go to some diocese in the episcopal church and find people who will be politically aligned very differently than most people here, but that sort of basic level, we'd stayed together -- i become a bishop as the episcopal church went

through the struggle over human sexuality. i was privileged to be apart of that struggle, and we stayed together as a church. yes, some people left but as a church we kind of moved forward together through that 10 years of struggle. it was remarkable. >> you've been a leader in the lbgt movement here. probably one of the reasons you were elected, would you say? >> i doubt it. >> okay. >> certainly i was known for being progressive, but there were openly gay partnered people in the election with me. >> yeah. >> in fact it was a surprise -- >> you were surprised you were elected? >> i was definitely surprised. i think the world that was paying attention was surprised as well. >> why do you think you were elected? >> i think it has to do with connection. the other candidates were really

wonderful. but i did have this sense as the week went on during the walk-abouts of truly feeling fitting and understood and feeling the same. i felt this deep connection. >> that's a good place to pause and we'll come back in just a moment to connect with our bishop. thank you.

father: here we go. we're gonna go out there in the rain. you're gonna get wet. alright, here we go! baby: [squealing with joy] father: oh, yeah. yes! so much fun! you're so wet.

welcome back. we have bishop mark andrus. he's the bishop of the episcopal diocese of california. you have been the bishop for 10 years >> true. >> challenges in these 10 years and how is the episcopal church doing under your oversight. >> those are good questions.

elizabeth, when sheila and i moved here 10 years ago, the iraq war was on, and i had been publicly opposing it in alabama. there weren't a lot of people publicly opposing the war in alabama, but i carried that commitment, my belief that it was wrong for a variety of reasons here, and i led a protest of episcans joining with those. i didn't expect to be a defying moment, but it put a stamp -- it was public. i got hundreds and hundreds of letters. whenever you step forward, it puts you in a position to learn something. and i learned so much from people. i got letters from -- i got letters from service men,

service men and women serving in iraq saying this is a terrible war and thank you for standing up for it. i was so moved by that. and it taught me that we, who are given the gift of these public positions, really have to be mindful of how we carry hope for people. and harvey melt said you have to give them hope. this is what we're all about is standing up and offering hope to people. >> carry hope -- how do you carry hope for people. >> i really -- because we stepped forward in that way, there were about 200 a piss camacho pans who walked with me and we met these win derful waiters and we were arrested by federal marshals. every one of those federal marshals served in

desert storm and privately said to me we don't support this war and thank you. >> uh-huh. >> it was illuminating. from that moment on i felt that responsibility of carrying hope, not by myself, but with people, so i've worked on a lot of public issues like immigration, lgbtq rights, recognition of their rights, environment. >> climate change? >> yes. >>ed media is with and affordable housing. >> definitely, we're working together with the interface council and the mayor. that's beautiful work and it's very important. >> i like what you said about our faith engaging with the public, and public issues and tell us how are some of the episcopal churches under your oversight engaged in public life? >> well, much like your

lutherans congregations, these are beautiful people, so a lot have sprung up. they have been doing good for a long time. the diocese of california got started around 1849 with two churches. first trinity which is now trinity st. peters on [indiscernible] and bush. and it wasn't there then. >> right. >> and great cathedral which was grace church where the ritz is today, stockton in california. and from that time, i would say that as people say that california leads and the country will go that way eventually, the episcopal church shaped the values we call our bay area values. they've been leaders in that for almost 170 years.

they're still doing that. they're meeting new challenges? >> what the new challenges? >> clearly income equality is one of those, and the other is our recognition that we are in what's being called an epock. meaning we have shaped the climate. this is human induced. so interestingly here in california and in northern california, we are good stewards. we do a good job caring for the environment, but that didn't isolate us from 4 years of extreme drought. and probably more to come. we got a little break this late winter early spring with el nino, we got some rain and the hills are greener and we said prayers for thanksgiving for that. at the same time that el nino was the strongest in 100 years and caused us breaching: we know of coral reefs in the pacific.

a third to a half of those are gone and may not come back. so these are planetary effects that we're dealing with and so the income equality which we have the unfortunate position of maybe being the most income equal city, region in the united states among them for sure, and what's done to our population -- >> we see it in the city here. >> so much. >> there's a very old settlement house like hall house is the oldest in chicago. we have one in the episcopal good samaritan here in the city and the director, pause, he narrated that to me. he narrated the story there's clients of there's who are what they can have in the way of housing is an old modeled car that they buy from very little and then they rent

space in somebody's yard in the lower mission, and that's their home. >> that's the home. we're going to have to take a break. and then welcome right back to hear more about this story and others. thank you.

we're back with bishop andrus. he was finishing a story about -- >> people are living in cars to pay somebody to use the bathrooms because they're low waged workers and otherwise they would community 2 hours. it drives income equality gap further. this is the cost of what's happening in our city.

it's driving people out of all kinds. we lament our public school. it's not because we don't have good teachers, but think about what they have on their backs in terms of moderate waged people who have to commute longest just to teach in our public schools. >> i'm interested how you as a bishop can influence -- they serve along side you and those perishes to address the public issues, do you do it through your teaching, your preaching, your leadership? >> all that. but they're there. this diocese has been here for a long time and people have stepped into roles where people have been there before him who have held great values in terms of solidarity with neighborhoods

and with generosities is a wordy have used before. i don't have to do a lot in that way. they're there. i think a missing thing in our church and it may be truth for lutherans is advocacy. we have the ability to influence from our position as faith people, as citizens too, public policy, we don't use that very much. when i was a chaplin at a boarding school, it was a largely conservative population, and the parents were mostly republicans and kids believed what their parents believed. but i got a chapter started there and a group of students there would faithfully gather and write these letters all over the world including to our own government about human rights. >> are you bishop for life? >> we have mandatory retirement at 72. >> you finish 10 years. let's project into the next 10 years

as we conclude our show, what do you hope to accomplish? in a brief response. >> well, the revitalization of our churches, they are wonderful, but we face decline like all of the main world religions and in the diocese of california, we have stopped the decline. our -- who succeeded that in south africa said to me the best deliverer of social good is the local church because in a village in africa, you think about a neighborhood in san francisco in the bay area, there may not be a government office, but there's always a church there, so these churches are life. they're beacons in a neighborhood. if i don't give

them the opportunities to shine, it's hard to get it started again. we have stabilized many of our fragile congregations and now it's thrive time. >> we look forward to watching and supporting you and your leadership for the next 10 years. i want to thank our guest bishop andrus for coming on mosaic and being here and the guest here this morning. thank you so much.

filling in for kenny choi. begin with our pitch....if u have a show idea......we wod welcome to base sunday. i'm your host anne makovac. if you have a show idea we love to hear from you, go to facebook.com/live -- there's -- welcome ramirez. the director of cinema and the 8th annual san francisco latino film festival, joe coproduces our kickoff to hispanic month. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> we're into our 8th season. we have a great line up of films,